Family fortunes

Cliftonville Football Club were delighted to welcome some very distinguished guests to Solitude this week.

Direct descendants of John McCredy McAlery, our founder and the man who brought football to Ireland, Michael and Lisa McAlery were accompanied by two of their children, Kieran and Shea, on a trip from their home in Durban, South Africa.

The family spent time exchanging family history and photographs with our Heritage Development Officer Paul Treanor and Chief Operating Officer David Begley, who was pleased to present them with a personalised Reds shirt on behalf of the Club.

Michael is the great, great grandson of the man who established Cliftonville FC, with our founding father’s eldest son, John Alexander (born in 1880), understood to have moved to South Africa around 1900.

He, too, had a son called John Alexander (born 1915), who continued the family’s naming tradition when he welcomed his own son into the world in 1939. Some 24 years later, in 1963, another John Alexander came along and it was his brother, Michael, whose company we were thrilled to enjoy this week.

Following their tour of Solitude, the family visited John McAlery’s grave in the company of David Begley and Peter McCabe, a well respected authority on the history of graves and graveyards. While Paul Treanor was aware of the location of the grave, it was Peter who kindly enabled access to the closed site.

Until this visit, good photographic images of John McAlery were limited, however the family generously shared a picture they had of John, which the Club hope to in the future enhance and place within Solitude.

With new relationships now firmly established, Cliftonville Football Club looks forward to augmenting the history of John McAlery in time to come and we extend thanks to Michael, his wife Lisa and their sons Kieran and Shea – great, great, great grandsons of the man who brought football to Ireland – for their time this week.